


five feet per second

by eightbiteuphoria



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Fairy Tale Elements, M/M, aka a winter wilderness/cottagecore-ish shindig, but not really, unbeta'd woohoo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:55:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28456428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eightbiteuphoria/pseuds/eightbiteuphoria
Summary: It’s in the uncanny tilt of his head, in the curve of his mouth as he smiles at Jaemin, quick and light as any bird. The snow-frosted mess of his hair, the way his hands nimbly take apart and put together Jaemin’s kitchen tools, his knitting, and his heart.Yes, there’s only one word for Donghyuck: otherworldly.Or: Jaemin escapes to a snowy wilderness to get away. He gets more than he bargained for.
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Na Jaemin
Comments: 8
Kudos: 26





	five feet per second

**Author's Note:**

> hello, and happy new year!  
> i wrote most of this during christmas and listening to one of those many folk playlists on youtube, so if you like to read with music, i think that'd be a good way for Immersion and to set the mood. don't be shy to holler down below if you've got anything to say, be it your thoughts or critique!  
> thanks, and enjoy :-)

It’ll become unbearably cold again. 

Jaemin knows it when the chill starts to creep into his bones. Cold that’s only skin-deep, he can deal with; it means winter that year will be a mild one. This one isn’t anything like that — this one promises heavy coats, a fireplace that stays kindled, precious daylight spent indoors. Soul-crushing boredom. 

Sometimes he watches the snow, eyes and mind glazed over, that’s been falling for a week straight just beyond his window, spiralling down in great, slow flakes. It’s always beautiful; the air is so still that there’s barely any wind, so the snowflakes look almost suspended in motion, like disturbed pieces of glitter in an upended snow globe. Not that Jaemin would particularly mind living in a small glass hemisphere. He might as well already be — out here, it’s only the pine trees, relentlessly evergreen, the occasional fox or hare, and himself.

_This is what you signed up for._

On days like these, he has to remind himself. When it gets more — difficult, being alone.

Jaemin had never, ever felt the need to before — had never even considered, but becoming a hermit is easier than he had imagined. Well, except when there’s absolutely _nothing to do._

He groans, rolling away from the window, the blankets and stole he’d wrapped around himself tangling. He’d been tracing the movement of a particularly distinctive snowflake — it’d had spires radiating outward from its heart like a miniature sun — along the frigid glass. It had floated toward his finger where it was pressed against the window, and had melted against its heat, dissolving in a flash. 

Look at him, waxing lyrical about a goddamn snowflake, of all things. _Pathetic._ He opts to stare up at the knotted wood of the ceiling instead from his spot on the floor. Theoretically, anyway, there are things he could do while being snowed in. Jaemin ticks off a mental checklist: shovelling roof snow, done. Soaking laundry, (miraculously) done. Enough butter for tomorrow’s cherry strudel. General cleaning, done, done done. 

Oh. There is a book he’d attempted to start in efforts to improve his literary track record. Emphasis on _effort._ It sits baleful and neglected atop a pile of unanswered letters. His parents, probably; maybe Jaehyun. He wouldn’t count on it, though. 

Jaemin closes his eyes again. 

He feels so damn enervated in a way wholly unfamiliar, his limbs and brain coated with the same timeless stillness of the floating snow outside. Seconds can stretch into hours and suddenly be the span of an interval between one blink and the next again. Time moves at once too slowly and too quickly in winter here. 

Jaemin shuffles to his socked feet. He’ll brew another pot of coffee to make himself feel functional again, because even if he _is_ isolated in snowy wilderness, God forbid he be without the drink.

He passes the fireplace, its tongues of flamelight flickering merrily. They emit a constant, comforting _crrk-sss,_ like any sensible fire. Until they don’t.

Jaemin stops. The crackling of the flames has been cut off, sudden and clean, as though it were music playing that someone pressed _stop_ on. 

Immediately, the house is filled with even more unnerving quiet. Jaemin can hear himself breathe, his quickened breaths as he goes back to examine the now-silent hearth. 

Inhale. Exhale. The kindling, freshly gathered yesterday, lies unburnt, and so is the firewood. An impossibility. All that remains of the fire is a curl of smoke vanishing up the chimney, pulled up by the gelid atmosphere.

Already, he feels the warmth of the air leaching away back into the cold beyond. “What the fuck,” Jaemin whispers, pulling his sweater about his arms. “How. Is this happening.”

Maybe there’s some scientific explanation behind it. Air pressure, temperature, frigidity, weather being a sub-zero bitch. The real clincher, though, is when Jaemin tries to flint the fire back into existence, and not a single fucking spark catches on the perfectly good kindling. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Not even after ten increasingly panicked minutes of trying. That’s something not even whatever barometric, pseudo-scientific theories Jaemin can think of can explain.

God. Jaemin takes another deep breath, trying to quell the distress and freaked-out-ness threatening to burst at the back of his throat. “Okay,” he rationalises aloud. His voice fills the silence, cracking. “Okay. So I’ll just go get more fuel, no problem. Because _these_ plants…are…broken. Somehow.” His voice pitches up. _By some_ one? He’s never believed in the paranormal, never been religious, but the evidence is smouldering softly right in front of him. Hysteria bubbles at the borders of his mind; he almost laughs aloud. But doing so would _really_ mean he’s lost it, so he schools himself with effort.

There’s no need to worry. Jaemin pulls on a scarf, his coat, boots. He fetches his axe from where it hangs in the corner, feeling its solid heft on his shoulder. Supernatural activity? Not likely. He’s being ridiculous. 

So why does the hair raised at the back of his neck tell him otherwise?

As Jaemin pulls the door open, a rush of cold wind buffets him and immediately dies down. Apart from that, the weather’s beautiful, at least — sunlight glances off the bright snow and makes everything look clean and powdered and unreal.

He exhales once, watching the vapour of his breath drift skywards, then crosses the threshold. It feels more momentous than it should.

——————

The heavy, drifting snowfall from before has lightened considerably to mere flecks, crisp air filling his lungs in a draft. Jaemin shivers and blinks ice from his eyelashes as he spots a good branch, fallen conveniently on the ground. 

“Just lovely,” he mumbles to no one in particular, tramping toward the copse of trees. He hasn’t ventured far — the forest he frequents for fuel is about a six-minute hike from home, but he already feels more alive with the cold and exercise. As ever, the morning is silent and frosted, save the occasional birdcall; the copse of fir trees rises around him in a looming glade, casting shadows that stretch over the snow, seemingly in defiance to the luminous valleys beyond. 

Stopping before the severed wood, Jaemin’s boots sink into the snow as he examines it. It’s just a little longer than his height. Perfect.

Jaemin hefts his axe and brings it down. It cleaves through the wood cleanly with a thud that reverberates eerily through the wooded clearing. Will he ever get used to the utter silence that pervades every corner of this place? He isn’t sure. He does it again — _thok —_ again clarion clear. Jaemin has a sudden, irrational thought — if, theoretically, there _is_ some paranormal thing harassing him, is he just exacerbating his imminent fate? 

Fuck. He needs to stop. As Jaemin again raises the axe, something _moves_ at the corner of his vision. Lightning—fast, shock races up his spine; he startles so badly he drops his axe. The blade lands mere inches from his boot.

“Oh, my God,” Jaemin swears aloud, whipping his head up to stare at the encircling trees. Did he hallucinate that? His heart thuds in his ears so loudly, the forest and whatever _thing_ that was can probably hear. A breeze plays at his exposed hair and passes. He can’t move.

Then, there it is again: a distinct flicker of movement. Jaemin catches a flash of russet and black before it steps into the clearing — a fox. 

Now Jaemin doesn’t suppress his slightly manic laugh of relief. The fox stares at him before loping on. “Ah, you seriously freaked me out,” Jaemin calls after the animal. His heart’s still pounding as he bends to pick up the fallen axe. “I’m going crazy. Don’t do that again, fox, please.”

“Do what?”

“Aargh!” Jaemin falls, very dignified, flat on his ass. Out of seriously fucking _nowhere,_ a boy is standing over him, his head cocked. The fox is gone. 

How — where had he come from! Jaemin hadn’t heard him or his footsteps crunching through snow at _all,_ like they should’ve. His gloved fingers clench around cold powder. The snow is so deep here he can’t feel the ground.

“Er. Scare the hell out of me?” Jaemin manages. “Like you have, incidentally?”

The boy’s hair, falling into his eyes, is suddenly whisked aside as he barks a laugh at Jaemin. The sound cuts through the winter silence like a bright knife. That, Jaemin realises, is an apt description of the boy himself, who looks to be his age or a little younger. His eyes, alight with mirth, seem to look through him, piercingly intelligent.

“You’re not from here, are you,” the boy says — a statement, not a question. His gaze becomes even more gimlet; Jaemin can’t look away. “I can tell. We don’t get many newcomers. We haven’t, in a while.”

“And you…” Jaemin says. “Live here. Not in town.” Said town is more of a hamlet, really, about two kilometres from here. Jaemin only goes there out of necessity — for food, baking supplies and his job.

The boy looks skyward. Cold morning light turns the shades of his dark hair brown and iridescent and ethereal, illuminating a smattering of moles along the curve of his neck and cheek. “Pretty much,” he responds. 

Jaemin hadn’t expected to have neighbours, but he supposes that other recluses exist, too. “So where do you stay?”

“A ways from you.” Cryptic. Then Jaemin is a little freaked out.

“I’ve never seen you in town, I don’t think. But _you_ know where my house is?” 

The boy just looks at him. “I know these woods like the back of my hand,” is all he says. His breath curls like smoke in the air.

Shivery unease crawls up Jaemin’s spine the more he considers him, this snow-dusted, bright-eyed being. Where did he come from? And why has Jaemin never seen head nor tail of him in his month of living here? That surely can’t be normal…can it? 

The fire blowing out. Sparks unable to ignite flame. Disquiet, persistent and looming. It can’t be a coincidence, but — as Jaemin meets his gaze again, something he sees gives him pause. It makes him, highly uncharacteristically, stick his hand out and say: “I’m Jaemin Na.”

The boy’s bare hand is cold even through Jaemin’s thin glove. “Donghyuck,” he responds, giving a firm shake and hauling Jaemin to his feet. “Lee.

“I have to go now, but I’ll see you around.” Donghyuck’s smile is as sharp and glittering as sunlight reflecting off a glacier. Jaemin is thoroughly disoriented. He wants to chase that feeling. 

“Sure?” Jaemin offers weakly. What is he doing, talking for this long with a total stranger? 

But — maybe it’s the fact that Donghyuck is the first person he’s held a conversation longer than two words with in a while. Maybe it’s just because Donghyuck’s the first person he’s seen about his age. Or maybe his brain is just going into cold-induced shock and saying whatever the hell it pleases.

Regardless, there’s something different — intriguing — about Donghyuck. Jaemin wants to find out how much so.

Donghyuck’s grin widens. “I will.” 

He walks back into the wood. The only signs that Jaemin hasn’t hallucinated the whole thing are his footprints. Soon enough, even those disappear, covered by fresh snowfall.

The clearing is again silent and lonely and even colder. As Jaemin picks up his axe and firewood, he feels as though the world has shifted like ice beneath his feet.

————

Jaemin wakes with a gasp, his heart pounding. He’d been running in a dream of whirling ice, of trees and darkness. It’s too cold to really sweat, but he still finds his hands clammy.

It’s been four days since that strange encounter, four days since the fire went out (which hadn’t happened again). Four days since Donghyuck. In his cold-induced quarantine, what can Jaemin do but think of him, this boy with the intriguing, steely, foreign gaze? Who looked at Jaemin like he wanted to see more of him, too?

Outside, snow is sleeting hard and thick. The wind — a freezing howl — buffets the shadowy silhouettes of trees. It’s too loud, and Jaemin’s too awake, to fall back asleep, so he settles in front of the hearth to warm up, curling his fingers in the small rug in lieu of sitting on the one armchair he owns. The living room is small. Jaemin likes to think of it as “cosy”; everything about his abode is, but it doesn’t matter. Not when he’s the only one living in it.

He stares into the fire and contemplates reading his book. Maybe that’ll make him sleepy enough to go back to bed.

And then:

_Bang!_ Jaemin sits up. The windowpanes rattle ominously with the aftershocks of the sound — a tree’s boughs have been thrown against his window by the wind. 

His heart is in his throat. Beyond the dark silhouette of branches, he makes out, very vaguely, an extra flicker of motion. Unlike the last time, this is too big — and bipedal — to pass for another woodland creature. 

_Donghyuck?_ He hates how he’s the first thing that comes to mind. It’s the middle of the night, anyway; no sane person would be out, much less in a storm like this. 

Then again, Donghyuck doesn’t strike him as particularly normal.

A knock. Two. Jaemin is on his feet before he knows it, pacing to the door, and _of course_ it’s Donghyuck, standing there with hair even more windblown and ice-frosted than last time, snowflakes swirling dizzyingly behind him, blowing into the house, a scant brown jacket covering his slight form. Jaemin doesn’t know who else he could’ve expected.

“Hi,” Donghyuck says, cheeks red with cold. 

Jaemin swears. “It’s ridiculous out there. You’re ridiculous. Come in.”

The door is shut against the freezing gusts of wind. “What on Earth were you doing out there?” Jaemin sets a kettle of water to boil. “Jasmine or chamomile?”

A pause. “Jasmine,” Donghyuck says slowly. “And my home was too far away from where I came. Yours was nearer.” His eyes are alight with playfulness. “Lucky me.”

Jaemin elects to ignore this statement. “And you were out doing…what exactly?” He passes the mug of steaming tea to Donghyuck.

Their thumbs brush. “My... dog was ill. But she’s fine, now. I’ve brought her somewhere she can recover.”

Jaemin makes a face of sympathy. Donghyuck must mean the town, but he’s never seen a vet there. Then again, he‘s not exactly the most knowledgeable. “I hope she gets better soon.”

The air between them feels tense, if only because this is their second time meeting under extraordinary circumstances. 

Donghyuck nods, sips at his tea. His fingers curled round the mug are slender, and firelight throws his flushed face in warm shadow. It’s only then that he notices the almost _silvery_ cast to Donghyuck’s skin — not greyish, but literally shining, albeit subtly. Jaemin looks away. It must be the dim light. “Um. You can’t go back out there, so you can stay,” he says awkwardly. Oh, he hopes Donghyuck isn’t actually a serial killer. “Here. With me.” 

“Oh, I wouldn’t want to impose…” Donghyuck trails off. Then he looks outside. “Well, it is pretty wild out there.”

“You think?” Jaemin snipes, then softens. “I’m insisting, really. It’s no big deal.” Except, it is. How long has it been since he’s had someone over? 

Opposite him, a smile blossoms on Donghyuck’s face. “Thanks, Jaemin. You’re too kind.” Then his smile turns impish. “Besides, my blood would be on your hands if you didn’t, wouldn’t it.”

This, Jaemin can deal with. “That suddenly sounds like not a bad idea.” They look at each other and laugh, almost surprised. But with that, the initial air of awkwardness (that will inevitably result when a snow-covered stranger who you’ve met less than a week ago enters your house) thaws somewhat, frost melting from a flower. 

Donghyuck pouts exaggeratedly, batting his eyelashes in a way that is probably supposed to be ridiculous. “I’m too adorable to freeze to death.” 

Jaemin grimaces. “Charmed.” But, Jaemin thinks, he is. In more ways than one.

—————

The following day, Jaemin wakes to find Donghyuck lying not in bed, but in the same place Jaemin was a few days ago. By the window, Donghyuck traces a finger down the frost-encrusted glass. He doesn’t object to the sizzling that emits from the stove, so Jaemin figures he’s good with breakfast.

As he flips an egg, Jaemin ponders. He’d honestly thought Donghyuck might have up and left without saying goodbye, an echo of the transience of their previous interaction, but here he still is. In his living room, no less.

Ordinarily, Jaemin might feel more upset at this. But as Donghyuck comes to sit opposite him, at the tiny wooden table that for once is devoid of stacks of pie tins and baking trays because it _needs_ to be, what uncurls in his chest is not weariness but something warm.

“Thanks for the food,” Donghyuck says. He smiles, and it’s a ray of sunlight captured. In the morning sun streaming in from the windows, his tanned skin looks not silvery but aureate, amber and lovely. Jaemin does a mental double-take at the thought. “I haven’t had eggs in a while. I’d forgotten how good and...warm they are.”

“No _eggs_?” Jaemin says, incredulous. “Try visiting town once in a while.” Hypocrisy pricks his conscience, and he adds: “Well. Not that I go down that often either — just for my job, and groceries.”

“And eggs.”

“Egg-xactly.” He immediately wants to die. 

“Ehh, effort was made.” Donghyuck looks down snootily. “But I’d rate that a thirty-seven-point-five. I could do much better.” 

“Out of?” Jaemin scoffs.

“A hundred, obviously.” 

“I’d like to see you match that fine display of verbal wit, Mr. Lee,” sighs Jaemin. “Pearls to swine.” 

“I’m flattered you called me a pig,” Donghyuck says, forking more eggs into his mouth. “That means you’re at liberty to feed me more next time.”

Next time? Jaemin freezes. Will this become a recurring thing, Donghyuck coming over? A displeased voice from his brain is saying _no_ , because wasn’t social contact what he — Jaemin Na and his introverted ass — came here to avoid? 

Good thing Jaemin’s never put much stock in his overactive brain.

“Bold of you to assume I’ll let you in _next time_ ,” he says instead, arching his eyebrows.

“Please. Like you’re not lonely either,” Donghyuck says, brazen.

Shock stirs in Jaemin, but before it can rear its head fully, Donghyuck looks at him and continues, “I can tell, because so am I. You’re the first person whose company I’ve liked in a while, and I want to.” He clears his throat. “See more of you.” 

Jaemin has to cough back a startled laugh, relief mixing with amusement. He can never predict what Donghyuck will say next, blunt or otherwise. It’s wonderful.

“You know, I came here to get away from people,” Jaemin says archly, taking a swig of his coffee. (He’d offered Donghyuck some, but the other boy had tried a sip and made a hilarious face. _I’ll stick to tea that’s not ridiculously bitter, thanks._ ) “Look how you’ve ruined my plans.” 

“It’s a good thing I’m not _people_ then.” Donghyuck raises his eyebrows. 

He has a point. Jaemin certainly hasn’t met anyone like Donghyuck back home.

“Well, what if I said no?” Jaemin says.

“I’d find you no matter what.” Donghyuck grins, and it’s like light glinting off a glacier.

Jaemin sighs theatrically to distract himself from the fluttering in his chest. “Then I guess I don’t have a choice,” he says. 

Donghyuck nods, playfulness sparking in his gaze. “I’m glad. It’s always good to have neighbours who’re friends.”

_Neighbours_ seems too mundane a word to describe what their interactions have been like, but Jaemin supposes it’s accurate, if nothing else.

In the comfortable silence, a shadow sweeps over the sunny room and passes. It’s brief, but accompanying it is the echo of a birdcall, faint but distinct.

Jaemin doesn’t think much of it — Donghyuck, however, noticeably stiffens.

“Is something wrong?” Jaemin starts to ask, but Donghyuck is already drawing his chair back and standing. 

“I have to go now,” Donghyuck says, and the deja vu hits Jaemin. “I’m sorry it was so sudden — I’d have loved to stay longer. I can’t tell you why—“he suddenly looks hunted—“but I will see you again.”

The _bird_? Jaemin can only speculate — but he knows what it’s like to not want people to pry. “Okay?” he says, trying to swallow unexpected disappointment. “This is becoming a habit with you.”

Donghyuck laughs. “It’s one I’ll break. I really am sorry,” he says genuinely. “See you soon, Jaemin.” The way he says it sounds like a promise. 

The wind throws the door open and Donghyuck steps into wintry brightness. He doesn’t look back. 

Jaemin makes to watch him from the porch. But, like a mirror of their first encounter, Donghyuck has already melted into the trees.

————

When Jaemin falls into bed that night, it smells like cold pine and Donghyuck.

————

The two of them seem to meet as inexorably as gravity, as a snowflake falling to the ground. Days and weeks pass and it only grows colder. But when Jaemin is with Donghyuck, whether the latter shows up at his home or in the woods, he’s never felt more warm. 

Donghyuck’s visits are like a force of nature; sporadic, unpredictable. Unlike the weather, however, they’re always welcome.

His letters from home remain unanswered; the lens of a life past narrowing, shrinking like a view through the wrong end of a telescope. The other boy is just that blinding.

“You have to fold it like this, idiot,” Jaemin laughs, taking the spatula from a bemused, flour-dusted Donghyuck. “You’re trying to get the flour in the dough, not on you.” He’d had the brainwave of teaching Donghyuck how to bake upon finding out the other boy’s inexperience. Cinnamon almond cookies had been the easiest thing in his arsenal.

Over the course of their friendship(?), Jaemin’s discovered that Donghyuck is curiously bereft of certain experiences — baking, being one of them — yet is inordinately knowledgeable about specific things. _I wonder how quickly snowflakes fall,_ Jaemin had once said, offhand. They’d been outside, the cold biting at his exposed cheeks and nose, frost falling sedately about them and landing in drifts on Donghyuck’s dark hair and shoulders. _How quickly they form._

Donghyuck had looked up from the snow he’d been gathering for a snowman. _Five,_ he’d almost whispered, his voice almost lost if not for the omnipresent arctic hush. A strange look had settled on his face. _Five feet, sometimes six, every second. It’s art on loop, quick as you like. Beautiful._

_How’d you know?_

_I just do._ All other questions in his throat had died away at the sight of Donghyuck’s eyes, bright with something lovely Jaemin couldn’t name.

They’re alight now too, only with amusement, as Donghyuck looks pointedly at Jaemin’s shirt, its blue plaid spotted with patches of floury white. “And who’s talking now?”

Jaemin wags the spatula at him. “I’ll have no sass in my kitchen, thanks very much. It’s only acceptable if it’s mine.”

“O master of the baked good, teach me how not to ruin my perfectly good shirt with a mess.” Donghyuck looks up from his exaggerated bow, eyes shining with mischief. “How’s that sound?”

“You’re insufferable,” Jaemin tells him. 

“Insufferably wonderful, you mean.”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night. Now—”Jaemin pulls Donghyuck up—”help me hold the bowl so I can fix this.”

Soft warmth presses into Jaemin’s side as Donghyuck’s arms cross his. The other boy is dangerously close, leaning into his shoulder — they’re about the same height, so his hair skirts Jaemin’s ear. This close, he can’t look at Donghyuck without counting every eyelash, so he studiously does not. 

Jaemin swallows and tries to breathe, but Donghyuck’s scent of pine hits him, at once pleasing and nerve-wracking. He should have thought this through more.

Donghyuck, on the other hand, seems unperturbed. “Your wish is my command, _master,_ ” he stage-whispers playfully, leaning in. He’s close enough that he can brush flour from Jaemin’s nose. At his touch, feather-light, electricity races along Jaemin’s spine. “What are you going to do about it, hm?”

God. What is Donghyuck _doing_? To him, specifically?

Donghyuck’s face is inches away. Jaemin can’t turn his head, or risk…

A pang of shock lances through him before he can finish the thought, and he commits to folding the dough in a figure eight instead. 

“Maybe not share these cookies with you when we’re done,” Jaemin replies, a beat too late. The bowl’s contents are suddenly incredibly interesting — maybe then Donghyuck won’t see his too-warm face.

“Spoilsport.” He hears, rather than sees, Donghyuck’s smirk. “Guess I won’t be getting any, then.” Donghyuck moves his hands from the bowl to drape an arm around his shoulder. 

Donghyuck’s warmth is unrelenting. Good thing Jaemin’s familiar enough with baking to let his muscles take over while his mind freaks out, and then feel stupid for even caring that much. Hell, Donghyuck probably doesn’t. He’s always been…clingy, and teasing. But if it means anything? Jaemin doesn’t know.

Maybe Jaemin is really that lonely, to be feeling this way. Or maybe, his heart whispers, Donghyuck is just that worth it.

It’s in the tilt of his head, in the genuine curve of his mouth as he smiles at Jaemin, quick and light as any bird. His curiosity — in new experiences, in Jaemin. The snow-frosted mess of his hair, the look in his eyes whenever he arrives; his mind glittering with all the sharpness of a fractal of ice. How he isn’t like anyone Jaemin has ever met.

The way the touch of his hand can make Jaemin even forget the life he left behind.

Yes, there’s only one word for Donghyuck: otherworldly.

“How’d you even learn to bake, anyway?” Donghyuck asks offhandedly, his chin pressed into Jaemin’s shoulder.

Jaemin spoke too soon. “I’ve always liked baking. I used to, a lot,” he says awkwardly, “with, um. My brother...back home. He taught me how.”

Donghyuck must feel Jaemin stiffen or something, because he doesn’t press the issue. “That’s nice,” he says. “If you don’t want to talk about it, it’s okay.”

Jaemin can practically feel Donghyuck’s curiosity vibrating off him in waves, though. He still hasn’t elaborated on how, or why, he came out here in the first place.

Ordinarily, he’d respond _no, I don’t_ and that would be the end of it. But this is Donghyuck, and he feels like maybe Donghyuck would get it, wouldn’t judge. Besides, Donghyuck’s out here for a reason too, and maybe if he voices it out, he can put his past to rest from where it’s been fucking around in his brain.

“It’s...not that dramatic,” Jaemin says, staring down at the chocolate-studded dough. “I just — I told you I used to live in the city, and I didn’t like my life there, is all. Too many people. And my brother, well.” He sucks in a fortifying breath, glad he can’t see Donghyuck’s face. “Being compared all the time was ass, for him and me. So I left for somewhere few people could reach me. Where I could choose who I wanted to talk to, and where the things I knew didn’t matter like they did back home.”

It sounds even more pathetic aloud. Donghyuck has fallen silent, but his arms are still around Jaemin’s shoulders. 

“A new slate,” Donghyuck murmurs suddenly, his tone contemplative.

“Pretty much,” Jaemin affirms. “I thought it’d be better, for me _and_ my brother. Okay, you can start judging now.” His attempt at levity is only half-joking.

“It makes sense.”

“Oh?” Jaemin cocks his head. “Aren’t you gonna tell me how choosing to be a hermit is incredibly lame and uncivilised, I should go back to face the music, etcetera?”

“No,” Donghyuck says, like it’s a fact. “You wanted out, so you did.” God, he makes it sound so easy. “Though, I can’t imagine wanting to see less of people. They’re so _interesting_.” Donghyuck’s tone sounds rather like he’s talking less about other people so much as an intriguing foreign insect or aliens.

“Uh-huh,” Jaemin says noncommittally. “You must not get out much. God, I kinda wish that were me.” He forces a laugh at the lie (that he’s trying very hard to make the truth, damn it).

“I don’t.”

Jaemin waits for Donghyuck to elaborate, but he stays quiet again. When it comes to details about himself, Donghyuck clams up — not that Jaemin doesn’t relate. So, like Donghyuck had done, he doesn’t ask why.

“Pass the nuts,” he says instead, and Donghyuck obliges, the strange air broken. “Why don’t you try folding these in instead? It’s a significantly less messy job. And less flour-y.”

“You wound me, Mr. Na.” Donghyuck takes the spoon from him. “But thanks for telling me about your life and stuff. And, for the record—” Donghyuck winks—”I think you’re the most interesting person I’ve met.”

————

“Mmm,” Donghyuck enthuses.

The cookies are pretty decent — not as good as the ones Jaemin used to make with Jaehyun — but the way Donghyuck scrunches his nose makes the cinnamon-spiced chocolate coating his tongue taste that much warmer and sweeter. “These are amazing. Food can taste like this?”

“Well, it’s my job to make sure they do.” At Donghyuck’s canted head, Jaemin explains, “I bake pastries and stuff for this lady who runs a bakery in town. She pays me and sells them to other people. So if these weren’t good, I’d have another thing coming.” He laughs. “Anyway, cookies are only the beginning of what you can bake.” Pleasure curls sweetly in Jaemin’s chest. “Stuff like cakes, other pastries exist too. We can try them together next time.” An unspoken invitation. “Though I’m not too good with chiffon.”

Donghyuck looks at him, and there’s that now-familiar smile like sunlight suffusing his face, softer than usual but no less bright or genuine. “I’d like that a lot,” he replies. “Baking was fun. Thanks, Jaemin.” 

Something about the way Donghyuck says his name sends a shivery boldness sweeping through Jaemin. “Baking’s always better with the people you care about,” he breathes. 

It doesn’t feel like any grand declaration or anything, Jaemin realises — only how he feels about Donghyuck, a hundred moments sweeping up on him and coalescing into an exponential wave of affection. It feels natural. Inevitable.

Silence. Panic shoots through Jaemin, even more overwhelming than that brief moment of adrenaline. 

But as Jaemin meets Donghyuck’s gaze, he’s startled to find none of the emotions he was expecting on Donghyuck’s face. Instead of shock or awkwardness, something that Jaemin dares to think might be happiness illuminates his features, and it’s like dawn breaking. But it just as quickly flashes away, somewhat, into…wistfulness?

“Come outside,” Donghyuck says abruptly, standing and taking his hand.

“What—” 

“I want to show you something.”

————

A light snow has started to drift down when they go outside — without coats or anything. But strangely enough, Jaemin doesn’t feel the cold at all. He has no idea what to expect from Donghyuck.

The other boy is still gripping Jaemin’s hand when they come to a stop outside the house. Jaemin doesn’t have time to relish the sensation when Donghyuck is opening his mouth.

Donghyuck takes a deep breath. “Please don’t...freak out. Too much.”

Before Jaemin can even say anything or even process what the hell’s been going on in the past two minutes, Donghyuck stamps his foot in the snow. 

It honest-to-God _explodes_.

A small blizzard of snow swirls up around them, a cloud of powdery white, so thick it obscures their surroundings. In the eye of the storm, all Jaemin can see is Donghyuck’s face, hair whipping in black strands, at odds with the whirling white all around.

The snowstorm is there and then it isn’t — it dies away as quickly as it’d started, with little more than a sigh. As snow showers down around them, Jaemin feels rooted to the spot, his legs frozen not with cold but shock, equally as numbing.

“What the fuck?” is all Jaemin can say.

Donghyuck’s hand is smooth, dry and very cold. “There are some other things you should know about me,” Donghyuck says. His face is paler than Jaemin has ever seen. “That I haven’t told you.”

The snowfall suddenly becomes heavier, a wind now chasing flakes in flurries, and Jaemin has to sit down, because he now knows it’s no coincidence. This is too much paranormal activity in a day.

Memories rise unbidden — smoke escaping up the chimney, a fire burning out. Weather that had brought Jaemin to that wooded glade, and Donghyuck to his home that night. 

“So you have — powers?” Jaemin asks lamely. 

“That’s half of it,” Donghyuck confesses, sitting beside him. “This wood is my domain, Jaemin. Humans would call me a...spirit of the wood, of winter. But we’re not gods by any means. We...call ourselves the _Other_.”

Jaemin looks at him. “Please tell me you’re shitting me.” This can’t be real. A hysterical laugh spills forth from his chest, but this might be the most unfunny situation he’s ever been in. He doesn’t think he’s fully registered all of what’s happened. “So you’re telling me you’re, what, not human?”

Donghyuck just looks at him, unsmiling. “Yes.”

A rush of feelings, of memories, floods Jaemin’s mind. The unexplained phenomena that only happened around Donghyuck. Donghyuck’s strange and spotty knowledge that he’d thought so intriguing. How he’d never mentioned anything truly concrete about his past. His mind keeps wanting to shy away from the truth, but its existence is undeniable.

The snow beneath Jaemin’s palms feels only mildly cold. His fingers curl around it to ground himself with the feeling, but it has the opposite effect. 

“Then — the first few times we met — had you been…?” God, Jaemin’s so out of his depth. “The weird weather,” he rushes out incoherently. “What the fuck happened with my firewood? Was that you?” 

Never has Jaemin wanted so badly to be wrong. 

Donghyuck sighs, turning to face Jaemin fully. “Guilty as charged. But, Jaemin—” here Donghyuck’s expression turns pleading, and it’s enough to make Jaemin feel a pang of regret—”please understand. I was curious. You were new, when nothing — no one — else was. And your spirit...it was so bright, like a flame.”

He leans closer, breathes again, and the wind seems to exhale with him. The sincerity in his gaze, aching and as warm as their bodies’ proximity, conversely robs Jaemin of breath. “But now it’s more than that. So much more. You’re important to me, and you deserved to know the truth of what I really am. I’m sorry, Jaemin.” 

Their faces are close enough that Jaemin can feel Donghyuck’s breath, heat and cinnamon dragging him back to the seemingly alternate reality of only a few minutes prior, standing in Jaemin’s kitchen. For a spirit born of winter, Donghyuck makes Jaemin feel so very warm. 

But this is the truth. He doesn’t feel deceived. Just uncertain.

“So what does this mean?” Jaemin whispers, looking at their joined hands. A frost spreads despondently within him. “Is there some rule that I don’t know about? Can I not see you again?” Oh, God, to go back to those days of ice and snow and isolation without end — he’d thought it was something he’d wanted, but how can he now when he knows Donghyuck is here, when Donghyuck’s entire existence literally saturates his very surroundings, just there but out of reach?

He’s given up an entire life, so many people. But this is one person he can’t bring himself to abandon.

Donghyuck hesitates. “Do you want to?” he says, his voice hitching up. 

With a jolt, Jaemin realises he doesn’t need to see his face to know what answer Donghyuck wants to hear.

“You idiot,” Jaemin says shakily, meeting Donghyuck’s gaze. “Do I _look_ like I want to? I’m offended.”

Donghyuck huffs out an uncharacteristically querulous laugh, but the smile that breaks over his face is like a sunrise peeking through clouds. Jaemin could bask in that for a long time. “Good,” he breathes, reaching out, and suddenly his hand — warm and feeling incredibly human — is on Jaemin’s cheek, the touch a confirmation, a declaration dizzying in its implications, but light enough that Jaemin can pull away if he wants. “Because the only thing that would’ve stopped me from seeing you again is, well, you.”

But why, Jaemin thinks, through the incoherent panic and excitement and shock flurrying about in his mind, would he ever want to draw away from Donghyuck?

So he leans into Donghyuck’s palm, and the unfamiliar action is at once frightening and exhilarating. Jaemin feels like he’s jumped from a cliff face, but the wind has borne him aloft in flight.

“Huh,” Jaemin tries to say teasingly. His voice cracks and it comes out more vulnerable than intended. “You must not know me very well yet, then.” He’s probably bared more to Donghyuck than he has to any friend within the past few years. How he still has the capacity to talk shit, he doesn’t know. Donghyuck makes him feel more interesting and listens like no one else, like he’s someone worth attention — even if Jaemin doesn’t quite think so himself. 

Donghyuck’s gaze goes dazzlingly focused, a single ray of light beaming soft warmth at Jaemin. “So teach me,” he says, the words an exhale ghosting Jaemin’s mouth. 

In that moment, neither of them have to say the words that they can already see reflected in each other’s gaze.

Jaemin closes his eyes. They come together like frost lacing the petals of a flower — gently, inexorably.

————

The days after pass like dreams, all of them snowy and filled with Donghyuck. 

Granted, nothing about them really changes after. Jaemin still can take comfort in Donghyuck’s presence — only now, he can do the impossible and take Donghyuck in his arms, press a kiss to the moles on his cheek, the corner of his smiling mouth whenever he wants. Every time he does it feels like the first.

“Tell me about your life as an Other,” Jaemin says, one cold, calm evening. “I think I can know that much now.” Post-chimney sweeping, they’re sprawled together on the floor, entwined in a nest of blankets and each other. More often than not, Donghyuck will come over to help with chores (each one a novel experience for him), but really it’s just to see Jaemin. He isn’t complaining.

Donghyuck hums. “Well, for one, I don’t technically live in this forest.”

“Really?” Jaemin raises his eyebrows. “Then why’re you always here?”

Donghyuck suddenly pinches Jaemin’s cheek. “Obviously it’s because of all the nice food you make for me,” he coos, his expression lighting with mischief.

“Not because of yours truly, and his ravishingly handsome face?” Jaemin says dramatically. 

“Well, that’s just a bonus.”

Jaemin rolls his eyes. “Spare me,” he deadpans. 

“Okay, fine,” Donghyuck says, settling into Jaemin’s side again. “I do live here, kind of, so I wasn’t completely lying when I first met you. But I live in another reality of this forest. The Other reality.”

Donghyuck emphasises the word _Other_ as though it were a term, so Jaemin figures its meaning. “Like, a fairyland?” he conjectures jokingly.

“Yeah, kinda,” Donghyuck muses, shoving Jaemin’s shoulder. “But don’t call it that. It sounds stupid.”

“Sure, but you’re telling me there’s literally a whole Other realm with people — spirits — like you right under our noses?” It seems like something out of one of Jaehyun’s fantasy novels. Jaemin banishes the thought.

“Yeah,” Donghyuck says flippantly. “Think of it as a...mirror, kinda. Our world is a reflection of yours. Or vice versa, depending on how you see it.” 

“That’s incredible,” Jaemin says. He already knows that he won’t tell a soul. “You’re incredible, for coming here. Are there Others like you?”

“Ye—es,” Donghyuck says. “Unfortunately.”

“‘Unfortunately’?” Jaemin echoes. 

“I have this...what should I call him. Brother? Mentor? Senior? Except he doesn’t do very much guiding,” Donghyuck says, his voice suddenly flat. “He can be difficult, sometimes, and I don’t...agree with everything he does, but he is an...important figure, to me and Others.” 

Oh, this is too familiar. “What do you know? Me too.” Jaemin keeps his voice light. “I know what that feels like. Not fun.”

“Do you wanna talk about it?” 

“Hmm. Not really.” Jaemin closes his eyes without rancour. “Tell me something else.”

A beat passes, then: “Have I ever shown you what I can do,” Donghyuck says.

Jaemin grins wickedly, turning to face him. He runs a finger along the moles speckling Donghyuck’s cheek to the smooth curve of his neck. “Besides being clearly terrible with, oh, knitting, cooking, most everything we’ve done together?”

“Fuck you, Mr. Twenty-Years-of-Experience,” Donghyuck says lovingly. “I mean my awesome power that lowly mortals can’t possibly comprehend.”

Donghyuck’s taken to swearing like a fish to water. Jaemin, inordinately proud, thinks it’s hilarious. 

“Try me,” Jaemin says. “Do freak storms count?” 

Once they’re outside and bundled up (Jaemin is, anyway), Donghyuck clasps Jaemin’s arms tightly around his neck. “Hope you’re not scared of heights,” Donghyuck says, grinning. “Hold tight.”

Jaemin registers, _wait, for real—_ and then they’re launching up, up into the sky. The very cloudless and very purple sky with absolutely nothing below their feet.

_Holy shit we’re_ flying _,_ Jaemin’s brain is screaming. He says as much aloud. But by God, if the sight that meets him isn’t breathtaking.

They’re hovering about twenty metres above the ground, and from beneath his boots Jaemin can see his cabin, now a brown spot on a terrain of pure, radiant white tinted orange by the setting sun, broken only by toothpick spires of brushlike trees jutting out in what look like little patches that Jaemin knows are actually whole woods. Everything looks so _small_.

Clinging to Donghyuck in the eventide, the two of them the sole visitors to this other realm, where absolutely no one can reach them — it’s so surreal that it’s literally the stuff of Jaemin’s dreams. “Pinch me,” he whispers, the wind catching his voice and throwing it away with a howl. He repeats it in a shout, laughing, his chest heaving with near-panic. “How is this even happening?”

The wind whips Donghyuck’s hair about his face, and he’s smiling, too, more stunning than a sunset. In the fading light his grin is golden; Jaemin kind of wants to kiss it off him. “I asked the wind, and it carried us. Normally it’s just me, but it agreed to host another this time.”

“You’re telling me the wind has a choice?!” 

“Well, it is technically a spirit, too,” Donghyuck shouts. “Sometimes it’s an animal, sometimes incorporeal, sometimes just invisible — like it is now.” 

The wind whips Donghyuck’s hair almost playfully, and through Jaemin’s mind flashes glimpses of half-remembered images: russet, foxy fur, an ill “dog” Donghyuck had first mentioned, the distant cry of a birdcall.

“So why doesn’t it show itself now?” calls Jaemin. 

“Because it needs to _be_ wind to carry us anywhere. Also, it’s shy.”

The prospect of a wind spirit(?) being shy of Jaemin of all things is kind of ridiculous, but he decides the very situation he’s in negates all other impossibilities. As if to emphasise the point, an errant zephyr trails through his coat and just as quickly dissipates.

Jaemin shivers bodily, pressing closer to Donghyuck. “Duly noted.”

“Yes, so don’t let go,” Donghyuck jokingly yells.

Jaemin tightens his arms round Donghyuck’s neck. “Never, Hyuck,” he purrs — a jolt of adrenaline making his fingers tingle — right into Donghyuck’s ear.

This close, Jaemin can feel Donghyuck’s flush, and it sends a second thrill through him. It makes this whole situation feel even more impossible, what with how human Donghyuck seems. Donghyuck’s arms, however, warm and freckled, might be the safest place to be in heaven or earth.

“Good,” Donghyuck says almost breathlessly, his grip around Jaemin’s waist tightening in preparation. “Because I might not ever be able to let _you_ go.”

Before Jaemin can respond they’re suddenly whisked along with a great gust, and he imagines being a snowflake caught in the thrall of the wind. He can actually sense the air supporting his weight around him in a tangible weight, so he’s not just hanging limply from Donghyuck. This is absolutely insane.

More fields of white, hued shades of dusky orange and red, pass slowly beneath them in silence, copses of trees casting longer and longer shadows as the sun sinks lower with every second. 

And then, cresting a small hill, Jaemin sees it: a miniature constellation of yellow lights spread out in the valley beneath, twinkling up at them. They’re high enough that they’re obscured from below; but if Jaemin squints, he thinks he can make out some tiny figures moving very, very slowly between the lights. And beyond, distant, mountainous peaks of silver and darkness loom, the whole terrain an intricate tapestry wrought in gleaming thread. The sheer, natural majesty of it all is unlike any experience he’s ever had, dwarfed only by the boy in his arms.

“Town,” Jaemin breathes. “Hyuck, it’s beautiful from up here. Everything is.” _You, most of all,_ lingers unsaid on his tongue. The wind has stopped blowing quite so ferociously around them, so Jaemin can barely hear faint strains of rolling music floating toward them from the lights. A celebration? No, a holiday. _Yule season_ , he realises.

“Isn’t it?” Donghyuck says softly, wistfulness sheening his features. “I used to come up here all the time and just stare down. Humans — they’re so bright, but fragile and strong all at once. I wanted to know what being a part of that felt like, for a long time.”

Donghyuck looks at him, and with infinite gentleness brushes an errant lock of hair back from Jaemin’s eyes. “But now, I do.” Jaemin’s breath hitches in his throat. “Thank you, Jaemin. For letting me feel a lifetime of humanity.”

His words escape into the starry air, the moon having risen, and Jaemin wants to bottle them up but he’ll be damned if he doesn’t remember them for an age. This entire moment — astral brightness spilling across an inky sky, reflected on earth from the lights in town, the snowy plains and Donghyuck’s face washed in otherworldly luminosity — Jaemin wants to live in it forever. But the look in Donghyuck’s eyes could outshine any light.

His lips are chapped from the arctic atmosphere but none of that seems to matter. Their mouths meet halfway, and heat shivers its way through every part of Jaemin, at odds with the literal subzero _sky_ surrounding them. He’ll never get used to the way Donghyuck makes all of him feel, but out of the kisses they’ve shared, this is the most magical.

Donghyuck curls a hand round the nape of Jaemin’s neck like a hot brand, drawing him sweetly closer, ever closer, and time seems to fall away in one long and starlit moment. 

“Thank _you_ ,” Jaemin breathes against Donghyuck’s lips, once they break apart for air. Their foreheads are still pressed together. “For sharing this with me. For making me feel a way I didn’t know I could.”

“What do you know,” Donghyuck says, echoing Jaemin’s words from earlier. His eyes are wide and almost vulnerable, but a tantalising smirk spreads across his flushed mouth. “Me too.” 

Jaemin goes back in to kiss it off him, his fingers threading through Donghyuck’s feathery hair.

Oh, this other world he’s wandered into, its every revolution governed by the fall of snow and the visits, touches, smiles of a boy with a wild and bright gaze — Jaemin definitely hadn’t envisioned this happening to him in any universe. But the electrifying heat of Donghyuck’s mouth against his, wind ruffling his hair in a boreal sweep, the lack of ground beneath their feet are unreal and yet actually happening. It, _Donghyuck_ , is a dream he does not want to wake from.

“I’ve never felt more alive than with you, Donghyuck,” slips unbidden from Jaemin’s lips, a prayer pressed into the warm skin of Donghyuck’s neck, his cheek, the sweet curve of his mouth.

Is it so wrong, to want to orbit the sun of Donghyuck’s smile?

————

“Thank you,” Jaemin mumbles, making to leave the small provisions shop. Already his thoughts are a mile away with Donghyuck back in their forest, waiting for him to come home. Jaemin had offered him the option to come to town to do some necessary shopping, but he’d declined. (“Just say the word when you’re done,” Donghyuck had said. “An Other really shouldn’t interact with full-on human civilisation.”) 

“Boy,” the shop proprietor, an elderly man with an impressively hooked nose calls suddenly. Jaemin stops short in his tracks. This is probably the only time he’s been summoned for conversation outside of fiscal purposes.

“Yes?” Jaemin says uncertainly, coming closer to the counter, involuntarily clutching his newly-purchased supplies in their paper bag closer. The smell of wood smoke curls round the shop like a live thing. He doesn’t even know the man’s name.

In the flickering light from the gas lamps scattered round the cabin, the man seems to examine his face. They stand in silence for a good five seconds until the man breaks it. “Thought I saw it,” he finally mutters. “You look moon-touched, boy.”

“Sorry?” Jaemin blinks. 

“Moon-touched,” the man repeats. “If y’know what I mean, you have that certain...unusually distant look in your eyes. Like your mind is somewhere, far away, walking with fey.”

Jaemin freezes. “Unusually?” he repeats, but really his mind is focused on the unfamiliar word _fey_. 

The shop owner laughs. “Whenever I see you, you always look like some gloomy mushroom. My son used to be the same. But now you still look like you want to get away, but you’re longing for something not here, too.

“Been visited by any fey folk lately, boy? Careful that they don’t charm you off.” The older man’s voice is light, but Jaemin doesn’t think he’s fully joking.

Curiosity rises inside him. What else could fey be but someone — something — as ethereal as Donghyuck? An Other?

Unable to stop himself, Jaemin deliberately asks, “But — fey don’t exist, do they, sir?”

“We have stories,” the man says. The lamplight wreaths him in a smoky halo. “A girl, few years back, about your age. The Mins’ girl. Something we couldn’t quite explain happened to her.”

Jaemin wants to be sceptical, but the way the man’s eyes seem to glitter with genuine feeling prevents him from being too cynical.

“Before she passed,” continues the shop owner, “she’d disappear for hours on end, and when she returned, she always looked like her soul was somewhere else. Her mother — I knew her personally, see — told me that when she asked, the girl said she’d met someone wonderful. Someone powerful. Someone who could make it snow with a wave of their hand.” He chuckles wryly. “Seems like stuff of legend, but the girl swore up and down it was true.”

Jaemin feels like he’s been doused with cold water. 

“Anyway, hours became days,” the man continued. “She’d always been a peculiar thing, interested in plants and such, and so it wasn’t very unusual for her to be missing, but certainly not for that long. Then one day, after about a week of her disappearing — the longest yet — she was found lying in a snowbank on the outskirts of town. Some small forest, you know the one.”

Jaemin is rapt as the man paints a sordid picture: the girl, collapsed on the snow, looking like one asleep save for her face. No wounds, unmarred limbs, so definitely not frostbite; just lips frozen in a neverending sigh, pale as fresh-fallen snow. Most incredible of all: the silvery crescents encircling her unseeing pupils.

“So they look like little moons,” the man says, widening his own eyes. “Moon-touched.”

“Oh,” is all Jaemin can say. His face is outwardly calm, but his mind is reeling from the revelation. That — what? Donghyuck had maybe met this girl too? That he’d made her—

No. It can’t be possible. Jaemin _knows_ Donghyuck, and he knows Jaemin like no one else. Maybe other fey folk, Others, had done this.

“It’s a grim tale,” the elder says with sympathy. “But it’s one that’s happened again and again in our village. Ask anyone you like. Every twenty years or so, some person goes missing, inevitably. Sometimes they disappear completely. Sometimes we find what remains. We never find out why, but before they go, they always speak of a strange being. The cadavers we see always have those eyes. ”

Oh, God, like that isn’t ominous as all hell. “I had no idea about this town’s history,” Jaemin says. 

“That’s because you never stay to talk shop with us old’uns,” the man jokes. “You always disappear off into the woods.” He raises his eyebrows meaningfully.

“Oh — no,” Jaemin hurries to say. “I have a cabin over there.”

“Don’t be a stranger, boy. What do I call you? And what are you always doing that you look so down?”

“Jaemin,” he says, shaking his hand. “Jaemin Na. And I bake for Mrs Song’s.”

“Ah, no wonder her pies have been so good lately. Pleased to meet you. You seem like a good sort, if a bit quiet. Call me Uncle Lee — Lord knows everybody already does.”

“Uh-huh,” Jaemin forces out, along with a tight laugh. Not really knowing how to respond, he backs off, clutching his goods in hand. “Thanks, and good day, sir — Uncle Lee.” 

“You take care, now. Don’t drift too far.”

As Jaemin begins the hike back to his home, his mind turns the interaction over and over. Could Donghyuck actually have done anything like that — killed another human?

No, he reminds himself. He doesn’t know that. Hell, he doesn’t know anything: are moon-touched people even really dead? What if the Other had done something else with them? _Besides, if Hyuck had wanted to hurt me, he would’ve done it sooner. He’s had plenty of opportunity to spirit me away or freeze me or whatever._

No. Jaemin shakes his doubts like cobwebs from his brain. He _knows_ Donghyuck. This is the boy — Other — it doesn’t seem to matter anymore — _being_ he’s trusted more than almost anybody else in his admittedly short life, and who’s given Jaemin as much trust. 

His thoughts drift to the most social interaction he’s probably had with someone who isn’t Donghyuck. The man, Uncle Lee, had barely known Jaemin. But he’d been observant enough to tell Jaemin’s funk, or at least crack jokes about it. 

He’d been so amiable. It’d felt nice to be worried somewhat about, in a way he hadn’t been since he’d left home. 

Jaemin resolves to bring something nice for Uncle Lee the next time he buys groceries.

————

Only a day later, it happens.

“Hello.” A voice suddenly rings out through the clearing. Jaemin jumps, dropping his armload of firewood. 

From the trees _something_ seems to push through the shadows, extremely disconcertingly, but when Jaemin blinks, all that emerges is a tall and slim figure. That’s definitely not Donghyuck — or any human. 

Jaemin looks around. In the ensuing hush, there’s absolutely no one else the voice could be addressing. “Do I know you?” he asks cautiously.

“I’ve heard lots of things about you, Jaemin,” the figure — Other? creature? — says in a smooth male tenor. He draws closer, and now Jaemin can make out tousled brown hair, wide, slanting eyes, a thick white coat. “From a certain bird.” The small and secret grin that graces his face is ethereally stunning. Unlike Donghyuck, however, this has none of the same warmth.

Jaemin wonders if the man’s words are a deliberate reference to Donghyuck’s wind spirit and decides that they probably are. This man does not seem quite real, Donghyuck had first felt all those weeks ago.

“You know him,” Jaemin says, his breath rattling, not wanting to drop Donghyuck’s name unless—

The man laughs musically. “Donghyuck? Of course. I only wanted to see what’s been keeping his attention all this while. You can call _me_ Jungwoo.” 

Somehow, between this moment and the next, the man is suddenly standing less than five feet from Jaemin. This close, his skin gleams with the same inhuman silver of Donghyuck’s, if not more so, like moonlight. 

“How interesting,” the man — _Other_ — murmurs, staring into Jaemin’s soul. Jungwoo’s only a little taller than Jaemin, but he feels as though he looms over Jaemin. His eyes are deep pools of obsidian; Jaemin feels a breeze swirl round them. “Pretty in a very human way. Is this why he hasn’t taken you yet?”

_Taken_. Uncle Lee’s words crash fresh in his mind. Jaemin stumbles backwards, clutching his armful of wood as though the sticks can offer any protection. Who’s to say this being won’t do the same to him?

“Don’t — come any closer,” he gasps out, adrenaline singing through his blood. Will he actually die here, in this forest, just a few kilometres from home and Donghyuck? A wild glance around tells him there aren’t many places to run — behind him, a white valley; behind the Other, the encroaching trees, now more menacing than sanctuary.

“Don’t be silly. I’m not going to hurt Hyuckie’s first human.” Jungwoo’s delicate features crease with detached amusement. “I just want to…understand my little scion a bit better.” 

“What? Scion?” Jaemin repeats dumbly. So _this_ is Donghyuck’s predecessor? A new slew of questions spark into existence in Jaemin’s head, but they are silenced when Jungwoo continues: “I want to know what has him worked up so, all the time—” unexpectedly, he rolls his eyes—“and why he keeps haunting you like some bereaved ghost. But I think I do now.” 

On Jungwoo’s face, a full smile, beautiful and cold as a snowdrop, blooms. “You burn so brightly,” he murmurs, extending a pale hand to stroke Jaemin’s face. For some reason, Jaemin can’t quite move, pinned in place by the force of Jungwoo’s hypnotic, endless gaze. “Humans normally do, but your spirit is different. You don’t deserve to be reaped. I’ve half a mind to bring you away right now. Perhaps make you one of us. You’d make a fine Other,” he says musingly. 

_Reaping, moon-touched — oh._ Jaemin thinks of silver eclipsing dark sclera and unseeing eyes. Panic thrills through him. 

But why, at the same time, is he feeling so viscerally in agreement with this potentially dangerous and utter stranger? The urge to just beg _yes_ hits him like a wall of rain — sudden and uncontrollable. _No_ , his brain struggles rationally, but his every thought seems to be bogged in a miasma. Jungwoo is doing _something_ to him. _Being human would be leaving everything, everyone, you know behind._

But — isn’t that the very reason why he saved and worked his ass off, got on two four-hour flights to come all the way out here, five thousand miles from the city he grew up in the first place? Why his letters from home remain indefinitely unopened? 

Maybe doing that wouldn’t be so bad. That way, all his ties are conveniently severed. He wouldn’t have to need anyone ever again, except Donghyuck. It would be as if he died.

Wait. 

“In fact,” Jungwoo lilts, “I think I will. Hyuckie would concur. Then the two of you could be together for a long, long time — you’d be freed from that rather pathetic human lifespan. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” 

Not Donghyuck, but Jaehyun’s face swims into view of his mind’s eye. Even after all this time, he can still remember the exact look in his brother’s eyes six months ago when Jaemin had first told him, not their parents, but him, in Jaemin’s little attic of a bedroom: _I’m going away._

————

“When,” was all Jaehyun said, sitting on the plaid bedspread. He hadn’t questioned. Both of them knew why exactly. 

The bleakness in his gaze, his eyes like two flat stones, was what had stayed with Jaemin.

“In two weeks.” Words spilled out of him anyway in a rush, a long-suppressed dam that had been kept dormant. “Jaehyun, you know I want nothing to do with this town, with my life here. There’s too many people; it’s just not for me.” Too many judgmental gazes in a big town that wasn’t big enough, but Jaemin hadn’t mentioned that yet. “I’ve been planning and planning, and I know what I want to do for a while _._ ” 

It had begun as a whim, as a passing thought — _I wish I could leave this place._ But unlike a whim, it had taken root in Jaemin’s mind, and the seedling of the possibility of seeing people as far as possible from any ties to his town had sprouted. 

The best ideas were rash decisions, weren’t they?

“You or our parents can’t stop me. Here—” he pointed at a section of the world atlas lying unfolded on his table. But Jaehyun cut him off gently.

“I can’t stop you, Jaemin. I know you’d find a way even if I tried. All I can say,” Jaehyun said, his gaze opening like a flower, “is that you don’t have to. I know the real reason why.”

A horrible silence descended over the room. 

Something ugly began to burn in Jaemin’s belly, a toothsome amalgamation of shock and conflicting gratitude and above all, long-brewing frustration. “What could you possibly know,” he’d said with false calm. 

“I know Mum and Dad haven’t been the most supportive of you.”

That was when something had snapped. “Oh, you think so?” he said, himself startled by how acerbic he’d sounded. “How’d you find out, when you’ve been away this whole year yourself? Being all wonderful and stuff with your perfect job and perfect school and perfect friends?”

A pained cast came over Jaehyun’s features. “That’s not fair,” he said. “Jaemin, I’m sorry I wasn’t with you more — I know I should’ve come back to visit. But I was far away, and practise keeps me busy. You know how it is.” 

“Yeah, I do,” Jaemin said softly. “I hear about it all the damn time from our parents. ‘Oh, Jaemin, why couldn’t you get into med or law school like your brother? Why aren’t you as clever and brilliant as your brother? Why do we have you with us and not him?’” His voice grew louder with each question until he was nearly shouting. 

Jaehyun’s handsome face crumpled. “Jaemin," he’d said again, reaching out to him. "That’s not how it is at all. That’s not how _I_ feel at all. I could never, about you.”

“ _You_ may not, but that’s how they feel. That’s how most everyone thinks.” Jaemin had turned away on his chair. He’d known he was being selfish. He couldn’t blame Jaehyun for being, well, him, stellar grades and charm and all. 

In light of those things, how could Jaemin ever measure up? What could he do but get away from it all?

This was the one thing he had control over. Besides, he’d been wanting to try living in a wilderness.

“They don’t matter,” Jaehyun said from behind. “You’re still a kid. You still have school—”

“Yeah, well, maybe uni can wait. Think of this as one of those gap years people talk about.” A numb calm had settled inside Jaemin. “Or maybe more than one.” 

He’d whirled back to face Jaehyun. “And I’m not a kid.” 

“Not really, anymore,” Jaehyun had agreed, his voice soft, after a beat. His eyes seemed searching; for what, Jaemin didn’t know. 

“This’ll just be...a change of scenery I could use,” Jaemin had finally said. “I won’t be gone forever. You’ll know where I’ll be; it’ll just be quite difficult to get there. Please don’t come find me,” he tacks on hastily. “Because I’ll be fine. I just have to get away for awhile.” 

His brother — his earnest, dazzling, absent brother — had just looked at him.

“How will we even know if you’re alive or dead?”

————

Jaemin doesn’t cry. But an indescribable pain wells up somewhere in the deepest part of his chest at the memory, and that aches almost as much as seeing Jaehyun’s deadened gaze directed at him had been. He realises Jungwoo is still clasping his face.

“It won't hurt,” the Other whispers, his hand pressed lightly against Jaemin’s cheek, an echo of all the times Donghyuck had held him the same way. It smells like nothing at all. 

“I’m not hurting you. I’m giving you a gift, just like I did Donghyuck. All you must do is close your eyes…to come away with me.”

_Just like I did Donghyuck._ A sneaking suspicion forms — that can only mean one thing. Amidst the haze in Jaemin’s mind dawns a realisation: Donghyuck, once upon a time—

“Was human,” Jaemin breathes, eyes flying open. 

“Jungwoo!”

A draft of arctic wind blows ferociously into the clearing, filling the air with the sound of branches crackling. From above, Donghyuck literally drops to the snowy ground lightly, positioning himself squarely between Jaemin and Jungwoo. “Stop it _right now,_ ” he spits at the other man, tugging Jaemin into his familiar embrace. “If you did anything to Jaemin—”

“Relax, little one,” says Jungwoo, serene as a winter morning. “Goodness, he’s got you in such a tizzy. How terribly human of you.” 

Snowflakes spiral dizzyingly about Donghyuck. He looks even more incensed, if possible. “How dare you cloak your presence with him from me? And, oh, I can tell what you were doing. It reeks of your glamour all round. You’re _not_ taking him with you.” So Jaemin was right — Jungwoo _had_ been influencing him in some way. 

The spell broken, Jaemin’s head feels clearer, not just from Donghyuck’s literal intervention. More mysteries have been unravelling, both his and Donghyuck’s. But first—

“Donghyuck,” Jaemin says, curling an arm tenderly around the other boy’s waist. “Thank you. I’m fine now. But, if I’m not wrong, were you…”

Looking at Donghyuck’s questioning stare, the constellation of moles along the sweet curve of his cheek that he’s mapped countless times, Jaemin hesitates. Would it be cruel to tell Donghyuck the possible truth of his past, or even give him that false hope?

“Was I…” Donghyuck prompts. 

Like how Donghyuck had trusted Jaemin with his otherworldly secret, and had returned Jaemin’s trust by giving him every part of him, Donghyuck deserves to know the truth.

Jaemin locks gazes with him. “Were you once human?”

Donghyuck’s face contorts with surprise. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he sputters. “The Other realm is all I’ve ever known. Jungwoo, tell him.” 

“Well. This is uncomfortable,” says Jungwoo. “I may have insinuated something of the sort that may or may not have been actually true. But—”

“No,” Jaemin interjects. “I’m pretty sure of it. Hyuck, when Jungwoo was trying to bring me away, or whatever, he seemed to mention you too. He called being taken a ‘gift’.” Jaemin looks at Jungwoo. “Like he’d done with you.”

Jungwoo just stands there, his ethereal face neutral.

“Jaemin — I —” Donghyuck’s eyes flick wildly back and forth. “I don’t — I can’t understand. Jungwoo,” he says, steel suddenly lacing his voice. “Is this true? Am I a changeling?”

In the smallest of movements, Jungwoo inclines his head. 

A hundred different emotions slide over Donghyuck’s face. He drops to his knees. When he hits the ground, the miniature snowstorm flurrying about the clearing abruptly dissipates, a shockwave of visible vapour rippling outward from Donghyuck’s point of impact. Jaemin goes down with him, holding him close.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that, Hyuckie,” Jungwoo says, his light voice carrying easily across the now quiet clearing. “You know changelings don’t remember their previous lives once they’re taken. When I took you, I thought it a mercy not to tell you. Especially after you started crossing the Border often, and being enamoured with Jaemin here. I really thought you would steal him like I did you — his spirit really is something.”

Donghyuck stays silent, his head bent. 

“Anyway, that was in the past,” Jungwoo continues. “I don’t regret having made you one of us, because out of all the humans I’ve taken, you were always the best, and my favourite. That’s why you’re my scion, and not them.”

Jungwoo spreads his arms. “And look how you turned out! You’ve been an excellent patron of this forest — well, except recently, but I can forgive that. I wouldn’t trust any Other with the responsibility. And I believe Jaemin here could potentially be as good as you are — if either of you choose to do anything about it.”

Jaemin looks down at the boy in his arms. “I don’t want to be stolen, or reaped, or anything,” he answers Jungwoo, but it’s directed just as much at Donghyuck. “I still have human things to do and stuff.” Grossly oversimplified, but it is the truth.

“Jungwoo,” Donghyuck says finally, clutching Jaemin’s hand. He looks like he’s still not quite sure how to react, but the expression on his face has all the desperation of a drowning man. “I just have to know this. Did I...have a family?”

Jungwoo looks at them, arms still outstretched, then lets them fall to his sides with a sigh. “If you must know, Donghyuck, yes, you had a family. When the town near this forest had just formed, generations before, your family was one of the earlier settlers. That was when I had noticed you as a child. You had a little brother, but he was just a baby, so it was quite easy to spirit you away without your parents noticing. 

“And because time runs differently in the Other realm, as you grew and came of age in our world, human time flowed quicker. As you know already.”

Donghyuck closes his eyes. “Ah,” is all he says, a breath shuddering out. 

Beside Jungwoo, a seedling pokes its shoots from the snow and sprouts into a tiny tree. In the same breath, its leaves wither and are shed. Jungwoo crouches over it. “So, the gist of it: you are still human. Technically.” He curls his fingers around a small branch, and frost spreads over the plant, covering it in silver. “But the time you’ve spent in the Other realm, and the powers I’ve bestowed you, have changed you. Neither truly human nor Other, you’re something special.”

Jungwoo looks up from the bare little plant, which now glimmers like crystal. “I don’t regret any of it,” he repeats.

Jaemin feels Donghyuck suck in a breath before he speaks. 

“Becoming a real human isn’t an option, is it.”

“No,” Jungwoo says bluntly. “It isn’t. I gave that possibility up when I brought you across the Border.” 

“I’m not blaming you, Jungwoo,” Donghyuck says. “I know stealing and reaping humans is our nature. But I feel as though I’ve been living a lie all this while.” He turns to Jaemin. “It’s true, I was supposed to take you like Jungwoo said. But I felt like I couldn’t steal everything that makes you human and _you_ , your spirit and heart, away.”

Jaemin draws his arm tighter about Donghyuck’s shoulders. “Jungwoo couldn’t, with you, either. You’re more human than some people I’ve met.” 

“But how can you say that when I don’t even know whether to feel like a human or Other anymore?” Donghyuck says simply.

Something clicks into place solidly inside Jaemin. 

“It doesn’t matter what or who you are, because I’d love you either way.”

Amidst the butterflies — no, birds — flapping wildly in his stomach, Jaemin has never felt more certain of anything, because it’s what Jaehyun had been trying to tell him, had always known. It’s what he hadn’t realised, when he’d slipped out of the house quietly in the middle of the night to catch the first flight of his exeunt, not telling anybody, and feeling only relief as he watched the familiar townscape with its lights recede into darkness. 

He has to go home. For not just Jaehyun, but his parents too. His life isn’t picture-perfect, and it’s going to be all kinds of messy going home and seeing them for the first time in half a year, but they are his family.

Jaemin presses his forehead to Donghyuck’s, and it’s so familiarly warm. “I love you,” he repeats, his breath curling warm and sweet between them, “but I fucked up. I have to go home and apologise for being an idiot son. And brother.” But not for simply being different from Jaehyun. If that’s how his parents are going to feel, then sure. He’ll try to change their minds, but if he can’t, that’ll just be how it is. 

He’ll make sure Jaehyun sees his face more than ever when he returns. At the thought, a weight that he’d grown accustomed to lifts off his heart. 

Donghyuck says nothing, instead clinging to Jaemin's neck. A measure of peace settles over Jaemin like the gentlest of snowfalls. 

“Okay,” Jungwoo suddenly says. Jaemin jumps — he’d kind of forgotten he was still there. “I have some southern blizzards to schedule, so I won’t intrude anymore. Hyuckie—” As though again stepping through a rip in the fabric of reality, Jungwoo appears out of nowhere in front of them, reaching out a slim arm to touch Donghyuck’s shoulder. “I know you’ll make the right decision.” With a howl of wind, he disappears, leaving only a trail of crystalline vapour.

The clearing is again silent as it had been, with just Jaemin and Donghyuck half-kneeling on the snow. It feels like the same day Jaemin had first met Donghyuck, except that they’re now on the same level, in every sense. 

“I love you," Donghyuck murmurs into the crook of Jaemin’s neck. A warm sunbeam thrills through Jaemin. "I don't want you to leave."

Jaemin cards his fingers through Donghyuck’s elm-brown hair. “I don’t want to leave, either,” he says, just as soft. “But this is long overdue.”

When Donghyuck raises his head to meet Jaemin’s eyes, they’re shining wetly. “Yeah. Hold on to your loved ones still alive,” he says, and Jaemin knows without him saying what’s running through Donghyuck’s mind.

“I will, Hyuck,” he says, drawing Donghyuck into a hug, trying to convey nothing but care and understanding through his touch. 

“What will you do, after you see them?”

“After?” Jaemin thinks. “I want to finish school, for sure. After that, I think I’ll leave town — officially, this time. Maybe I’ll go to the big city, somewhere anything could happen, like what they say.” Just like it had here. 

He can already imagine the renewed and intensified stares and judgment once he returns home. But he figures he kind of deserves it, too. He’ll grin and bear it.

“Great,” is all Donghyuck says. “You should do those things.”

“Of course I’ll come back and visit, too, but that just may be awhile from now,” Jaemin adds fondly. He couldn’t keep away if he tried. “Idiot. What about you?”

“Same old, I guess. I’ll be wrapping up winter round these parts soon enough, in a few months,” Donghyuck muses. “But I know I never, ever want to make changelings. I can’t take that choice — to be or not to be human — from them, like Jungwoo did.” A dark look passes over his face. “Because I’m not a full Other, I don’t have to steal or reap any more humans. I never have, and I’d always wondered why. So I won’t. When Jungwoo goes, my scion will be an Other.” 

“No more reapings,” Jaemin says, his heart light. He thinks of Uncle Lee and the poor Min girl. No more people going missing, families remaining whole. 

_Yeah, I hear myself,_ he thinks at his conscience accusingly prodding him.

“Not if I can do anything about it,” Donghyuck says, his dark eyes hard and determined. It makes Jaemin want to kiss him even more intensely, this incredible boy. 

At the same time, his heart aches for the family Donghyuck’s lost. That he should never experience it is cruel. Then an idea sparks like a firework in his brain.

“Hyuck,” he says slowly, “what about meeting some new people?”

————

“Good morning — oh, Jaemin, hello. Who’s your friend? I haven’t seen him before.” Uncle Lee sits outside his shop, smoking a pipe on a rattan chair. A little girl, wrapped in a red coat, sits with a doll in hand beside him on the snow-covered patio, looking wide-eyed at them.

Jaemin waves, nudging Donghyuck. “Hi, Uncle Lee. This is—”

“Donghyuck Lee, sir.” Donghyuck goes into a small bow. Jaemin can see his hands fidgeting. “Nice to meet you.” 

“He’s visiting from the next town over,” Jaemin says. “So I thought I’d bring him to town, soak in the atmosphere and all.” 

The elderly man harrumphs a chuckle. “Well, not that our little town has much of an _atmosphere_ or anything fancy like that,” he says. “But it is cosy, since it’s so small and all. Welcome.” He nods at the little girl beside him. “This is my granddaughter, Minji. Say hello, little one.”

“Hello,” the girl pipes, one eye hidden by a curtain of dark hair. 

Donghyuck visibly relaxes. “Hello. Town’s lovely, sir.”

“None of that. Just Uncle Lee will do.” Uncle Lee turns to Jaemin. “Now, are you here to buy anything or not?” he jokes.

Jaemin lets a smile stretch across his face. “As a matter of fact, yes. Hyuck, you can wait out here if you want.” 

He ducks into the shop. Once he’s picked out his goods, he presents the plaid-wrapped box in his hands to the shop proprietor. “I’m going to be moving out soon,” he confesses. “So I made some gingerbread, to just say thank you for looking out for me that day, and for always having what supplies I need in stock, I guess.” He laughs a little self-consciously. “Sorry I didn’t say hello sooner.”

“So soon? Oh, dear,” Uncle Lee says, genuine upset in his eyes. He accepts the cookies and places them on the counter. “Thank you kindly, boy. Come back and visit sometime. We’re going to miss your delectable baked goods too.” They both laugh, and Uncle Lee pats Jaemin’s shoulder. 

“I will,” Jaemin responds. They exit the shop into the sunlight, and the sounds of laughter greet them. Donghyuck’s in the midst of rolling snow into large balls with Minji. Donghyuck gathers the snow together with ease, but the small girl keeps falling over and giggling in the snow. 

“How do you do it?” she asks Donghyuck, her big dark eyes shining up at him. 

Donghyuck’s expression is inexpressibly gentle as he laughs with her. “You have to roll it like this,” he says, pushing the snow together with his body weight. “Though you might be a little small for that. You try.”

“I’m not too small,” Minji pouts. As she tries, a perfect ball of snow suddenly forms under her hands as she pushes it. “Ooooh, like that,” she exclaims. “Thanks, big brother.”

Jaemin smirks at Donghyuck’s curled hands behind his back. He definitely had something to do with that.

“I see you’re getting along well with Donghyuck, Minji,” Uncle Lee calls. The little girl just laughs and waves back, rolling more snow.

“Donghyuck has a way with kids,” Jaemin says, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“That he does. Minji! Come on, don’t keep the boys anymore. You have school soon and you haven’t eaten breakfast.”

Minji stands reluctantly. “I don’t want to go to school. I want to play with Donghyuck more,” she says, tugging at her red coat.

“There’s gingerbread I made,” Jaemin volunteers.

Minji gasps delightedly. “Gingerbread! Bye-bye, Donghyuck,” she says, running inside the house. “Thank you, Jaemin! See you soon!”

Donghyuck and Jaemin share a grin, Donghyuck’s coat covered with snow, and for a moment Jaemin can imagine exactly if Donghyuck were able to be human with him, going anywhere, bringing him home to introduce to Jaehyun — maybe eventually with a home of their own, not so different from Jaemin’s cabin in the woods.

As perfect as that would’ve been, that would have only existed in a reality where Jungwoo hadn’t been an Other and hadn’t seen Donghyuck. In a reality where Jaehyun hadn’t been as brilliant as he is. 

If not for those things, Jaemin would never have met Donghyuck. So he can’t begrudge any of that for happening.

After Uncle Lee waves goodbye and tells Donghyuck to _come round anytime!_ during his visit, Jaemin goes over to Donghyuck, curling an arm round his waist and brushing snow off his hair with the other, and they walk off. “Look at you, being all adorable with Minji,” he coos. “You’re a natural big brother.”

“Yeah, she’s really cute. Both her and Uncle Lee.” Donghyuck’s fond look could melt ice. “Jaemin, thanks for convincing me to come. And for Jungwoo for saying yes.” Since Donghyuck wouldn’t steal humans from this town, Jungwoo had pragmatically consented. “Wouldn’t it be funny if they actually were related to me? Like, my descendants or something.”

“Awesome, you mean,” Jaemin corrects warmly. “Then you’d really have found family again.” 

“Yeah. But you’ll always be my first family, Jaemin. And, like, Jungwoo, I guess.” 

“You romantic sap.” Jaemin rolls his eyes, presses a kiss to Donghyuck’s tanned cheek. “Come back and visit them. They’d love it. Well, Minji will, at least. What else are you planning to do?”

Donghyuck bats his eyes. “Missing you.”

“Yeah, right,” Jaemin says, as Donghyuck bursts into gales of laughter. “Who’d miss me round here, yeah? My amazingness just can’t be comprehended by everyone.” Falling into their familiar back-and-forth is so easy.

“I have absolutely no idea why anyone would think that,” Donghyuck snipes, ruffling Jaemin’s hair aggressively.

“Good, because you’re the only one I need to prove that to,” Jaemin declares.

Donghyuck makes a gagging sound and turns away, but the tips of his ears and neck are flushed prettily. “That was awful,” he says. 

Jaemin takes his chin. “Oh, yeah? I’d like to see you try to beat what _you_ said. _You’re my first family._ End me,” he returns, smiling so wide his cheeks hurt.

Donghyuck snorts. “I take that back. You’re my...biggest annoyance,” he rephrases, sliding his arms back round Jaemin’s neck.

Jaemin huffs a hopelessly endeared laugh. “Then shut me up,” he says, drawing nearer until their lips touch.

Kissing Donghyuck here, in the middle of a snowy clearing surrounded by trees, sitting on the ground, is just another memory Jaemin will have to imprint into his brain. Donghyuck’s warmth, the way his mouth feels against his, the softness of his hair beneath Jaemin’s fingers — these are things Jaemin cannot have forever. And so he tries to memorise every single sensation of this other world, one with Donghyuck, five thousand miles from where he needs to be. 

The squeezing sensation of longing overwhelms his heart, until Jaemin feels like it’ll burst out of him and forcibly stay in Donghyuck’s palm.

“God, I’m gonna miss you,” he gasps out against Donghyuck’s mouth. 

“Wherever on Earth you’ll be, there’ll also be an Other, remember?” Donghyuck responds, the vapour of their breaths mixing together in the air. “I’ll find the one in charge of that place. Maybe I can convince them to help us communicate a little. Faster than the post or whatever it’s called.”

“Fairy mail,” Jaemin says, grinning widely. Donghyuck punches his shoulder. “Okay, okay. If all else fails, I’ll write,” he promises.

Donghyuck places a hand to cradle his face, and Jaemin leans into the touch. “I’ll always be here, if you need me. Waiting. Don’t forget me.” 

A soft snow begins to drift down, light as anything, nature taking its course and art at five feet per second. Jaemin has a feeling that it’s not Donghyuck who’s making this happen. It just is.

“Never, Hyuck.” Jaemin smiles. “ _When_ I need you.” 


End file.
